Film Producers

That is, producers sometimes call the producer to differentiate them from the executive producer, associate producer, Co-producer, line producer, and so on. This is the person responsible for the film financially and logistically as opposed to the director who's responsible for the film creatively. Now more often than not the producer is the one that hires the director the producer might be the one that wants to make a movie that has the money to make a film that's raised the money to make a film then they have optioned the rights to a story of a book then commissioned a screenwriter to adapt that book into a screenplay then they've looked around and hired the director that they think is the best fit with the story that they want to tell then they are there to help the director achieve their vision and by help I mean make the director achieve their vision because the Patricia is the one who's credibility is on the line essentially should the film fail and who stands to make a lot of money should the film succeed sometimes the main producer is called the creative producer they're the ones that gather all the elements that make the film happen end in the hierarchy of a film they pretty much at the top they're the ones that that hires the director and if the director is not doing what the producer wants the other ones that fires the director and replaces the director now very seldom to just put their own money into films never put your own money in the in two never put your own money and I shall they hire they raise their capital to produce the film from various sources it could be the studio it could be private investors it could be the stock market it could be venture capital firms or hedge funds it could be anyone that has money that wants to make more money and that brings us to the second main type of producer the executive producer if you've taken the risk and invested your money making a film you probably want your name on it and if the producer won't give you a full producer credit there's a thing called the executive producer which could be the person that pays for the film but more often than not it's the person that facilitated the film getting made so either if they didn't directly invest in it they brought the project to the person that did give them the money or they champion the film in a different way you often see famous directors being executive producers on other people’s projects like Steven Spielberg executively produced tramp the transformer movies I don't know anything about that particular process but he probably made a few calls and like vouched for Michael Bay and the project to the studio that end up getting it made he walked away with 10s of millions of dollars because without his name on the film it probably wouldn't have got made without him vouching for the film without him investing his name in the film it wouldn't have got made and that's what makes an executive producer as you can probably tell there's a big fight about who gets to be producing who doesn't get to be a producer and the PGA that produces Guild of America introduced new guidelines where to get there they couldn't stop non producers meaning people that would just finances or studio executives putting their name on the film's producers so if they did it was introduced this thing called PGA title and you may see it in the last couple of years it popping up on film credits and to get it you need to be on physically on set for like 80% of the shoot date it snows there you can sit in your office write a check and then get your name put on the film as a producer to get those you can but to get those PGA letters up to your name you physically to come to set for 80% of the shoot days be there now very often big powerful Hollywood directors producers on their own films this is because the producer not the director makes financial decisions about where it's allocate money how much do pay people financial decisions about where to allocate money how much to pay people that's not the director's job but if the director wants to have total creative freedom if they want to you know build giant sets if they want to or they want to be able to make office to whatever cost they want regardless of cost they actually also need to be producer on the film so that there in those meetings and they have the right to allocate money so you know you'll see Ridley Scott James Cameron Christopher Nolan you know those kind of guys also serving as producers on their own films one step down from the producer is the Co producer now this is someone who serves a producer function but in a junior sense they may they may have helped they may have made calls like the executive producer they have made got the film help the film get made or they may be physically onset doing things like it producer would but as much part of the central financial creative team as the main producers so there's a critical coproducer which you can give to these people that's between produce that and associate producer associate producer is a much smaller credit it's sort of given to people that almost as a gratitude it's like this is where you've on Kickstarter you find the 200 backers that contributed to the film all get associate producer credits it's a smaller credit people in Hollywood know that it doesn't actually mean that much unless you're the one getting it which case it means a lot or even heard of people that were actually assistance on the film or served in smaller roles who really gave everything to the movie and helped to get made because they were just their everyday and ready to work the producer turned around and made them associate producers to say thank you for their hard work and there's no limit to how many associate producer credits you can put on a movie now we get to the rubber meeting the road which is the line produce the line producer doesn't is also interchangeable with the year production manager and this is the person who's onset cracking the whip making sure that we build the film you know makes its days making getting everybody paid negotiating salaries it's sometimes referred to as legwork and the producer well higher align producer so that they don't have to do all this nitty gritty sort of nuts and bolts stuff so that there's someone out there to ultimately who the crew or the cost goes to if they have an issue so that the producer can be looking at the big picture this is the live picture hope that makes things clear this is by no means gospel yeah different people have you know when the reason that it's so hard to know exactly who's in charge of a set or who's who has the power on a film is that these credits are very fluid